owever is large.

I myself, to be sure--I have as yet seen no great man. That which is
great, the acutest eye is at present insensible to it. It is the kingdom
of the populace.

Many a one have I found who stretched and inflated himself, and the
people cried: 'Behold; a great man!' But what good do all bellows do!
The wind cometh out at last.

At last bursteth the frog which hath inflated itself too long: then
cometh out the wind. To prick a swollen one in the belly, I call good
pastime. Hear that, ye boys!

Our to-day is of the populace: who still KNOWETH what is great and what
is small! Who could there seek successfully for greatness! A fool only:
it succeedeth with fools.

Thou seekest for great men, thou strange fool? Who TAUGHT that to thee?
Is to-day the time for it? Oh, thou bad seeker, why dost thou--tempt
me?"--

Thus spake Zarathustra, comforted in his heart, and went laughing on his
way.

LXVI. OUT OF SERVICE.

Not long, however, after Zarathustra had freed himself from the
magician, he again saw a person sitting beside the path which he
followed, namely a tall, black man, with a haggard, pale countenance:
THIS MAN grieved him exceedingly. "Alas," said he to his heart, "there
sitteth disguised affliction; methinketh he is of the type of the
priests: what do THEY want in my domain?

What! Hardly have I escaped from that magician, and must another
necromancer again run across my path,--

--Some sorcerer with laying-on-of-hands, some sombre wonder-worker by
the grace of God, some anointed world-maligner, whom, may the devil
take!

But the devil is never at the place which would be his right place: he
always cometh too late, that cursed dwarf and club-foot!"--

Thus cursed Zarathustra impatiently in his heart, and considered how
with averted look he might slip past the black man. But behold, it came
about otherwise. For at the same moment had the sitting one already
perceived him; and not unlike one whom an unexpected happiness
overtaketh, he sprang to his feet, and went straight towards
Zarathustra.

"Whoever thou art, thou traveller," said he, "help a strayed one, a
seeker, an old man, who may here easily come to grief!

The world here is strange to me, and remote; wild beasts also did I hear
howling; and he who could have given me protection--he is himself no
more.

I was seeking the pious man, a saint and an anchorite, who, alone in his
forest, had not yet heard of what all the wor